Caribbean leaders hold 48th Heads of Government Meeting in Bridgetown: 5 Interesting Facts About Barbados and CARICOM

The 48th Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community began in Bridgetown, the capital city of Barbados, on Wednesday, February 19, 2025. The three-day event, themed “Strength in Unity: Forging Caribbean Resilience, Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development” saw regional and international leaders attending and discussing pressing issues that the Caribbean region faces and key missions that it seeks to accomplish.

The current meeting of the CARICOM heads of government is taking place in Barbados which currently holds the bloc’s chairmanship. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley assumed the chair’s responsibility in January 2025, taking over the reins from her Grenadian counterpart Dickon Mitchell.

Barbados, an island-nation which is just 439 square kilometres in area and has a population of around 282,000, offers certain interesting facts related to CARICOM.

One of the founding members

Barbados, which is one of the more developed countries of the bloc which has 15 full-time members, was among its four founding members. In July 1973, the Treaty of Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago, was signed by the prime ministers of four Caribbean nations – Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana. Among them were Errol Barrow, the first prime minister of Barbados; Eric Williams, the former prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago; Michael Manley, the former prime minister of Jamaica; and Forbes Burnham, the former prime minister and president of Guyana. The CARICOM replaced the Caribbean Free Trade Association to promote economic and political cooperation among its member states. 

Barrow, to this day, is remembered as an architect of a collective CARICOM foreign policy. 

Not the first term for Mottley as CARICOM chair

PM Mottley, the first female prime minister of Barbados, is known to be a vocal critic of climate change and an advocate for Caribbean unity. In her New Year speech this year, she appealed for Caribbean unity in matters of politics and economy, in terms of seeking decisive answers to the crises in Haiti or striving for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and reiterated the same during her featured address at the heads of government meeting. 

While PM Mottley has assumed responsibility as the CARICOM chair in times of serious challenges, they are not worse than those that persisted in 2020, when she served the post for the first time. She was the chair between January 1 and June 30, the time when the deadly COVID-19 pandemic affected the entire planet. 

Barbados in charge of CSME

One of the reasons why PM Mottley has stressed CSME time again is because she has the responsibility of CSME (including the Monetary Union) in CARICOM’s Quasi Cabinet. The Quasi Cabinet arrangement was made by the CARICOM heads of government to advance specific issues/areas within the community. The decision to form the Quasi-Cabinet was taken at their Seventh Special Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago in October 1999. Each head of government has one specific area as his/her responsibility. 

The CSME seeks to create a single economic space among CARICOM member countries to generate more job opportunities, enable free movement of goods, services, labour and capital and attract investments to the region. 

Barbados hosting meeting for fifth time

It is not the first time that Barbados has hosted the Regular Meetings of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM. It has in fact now hosted a regular meeting in each decade since the 1980s. 

It played host to the sixth meeting between July 1 and 4, 1985; the 15th meeting between July 4 and 7, 1994; the 28th meeting between July 1 and 4, 2007; and the 36th meeting between July 2 and 4, 2015. This is the first time that it hosted the meeting in February. The 1985 meeting took place at Sam Lord’s Castle in St. Philip; the 1994 meeting at the Sherbourne Conference Centre in Bridgetown; the 2007 meeting at Needham’s Point and the 2015 meeting in Bridgetown. 

Barbados home to six CARICOM institutions

CARICOM has several institutions besides its secretariat which work towards fulfilling its objectives. As many as six of them are headquartered in Barbados, implying the importance the island-state has in its operations. The six institutions are:

·         CCREEE (Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency) to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency investments, markets and industries in the Caribbean

·         CXC (Caribbean Examinations Council) to provide regional and internationally recognised secondary school leaving examinations relevant to the needs of the region

·         CDEMA (Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency) which is a regional inter-governmental agency for disaster management

·         CARICAD (Caribbean Centre for Development Administration) which transforms and modernizes the member-states’ public sectors to better formulate and implement public policy towards sound governance

·         CIMH (Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology) provides training for the region’s weather observers and technicians, weather forecasters, and others

·         CDF (CARICOM Development Fund) to give financial or technical assistance to disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors in the community.

The headquarters of CARICOM are located in Georgetown, Guyana.